


The stars shine brighter tonight

by Chim



Series: About the stars [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Alien Winter, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Men in Black, Bucky and Winter are different people, Humor, Janitor Steve Rogers, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23332153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chim/pseuds/Chim
Summary: There are some nights you just can't sleep. Nights when you roll around in your bed, restless, until you finally give up and get out, get down in the empty streets with just your pajamas on to take a walk around the block. Those nights when you're just walking around, thinking that maybe you should've grabbed a hoodie or something, and then suddenly an incorporeal, multi-dimensional alien decides to steal your body."I'm notstealing it," the alien pointed out, sounding mildly offended. "I'll give it back as soon as I'm done with it."Or: Bucky has to share his body with an alien who is looking for some kind of apocalyptic weapon, which of course is somewhere on Earth. Meanwhile, SHIELD is scrambling to find two rogue agents, and one of their janitors is in for one hell of a discovery.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: About the stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686796
Comments: 12
Kudos: 32
Collections: Stucky Media Mini Bang 2019





	The stars shine brighter tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the Stucky Media Mini Bang. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you'll have fun reading! I want to say a big thank you to the wonderful mod of this Bang for all the patience and for making this beautiful moodboad!

There are some nights you just can’t sleep. Some nights when you roll around in your bed, restless, until you’re exhausted. Those nights when you finally give up and get out, go down in the empty streets with just your pajamas on to take a walk around the block. Those nights when you’re just walking around, thinking that maybe you should’ve grabbed a hoodie or something, and then suddenly an incorporeal, multi-dimensional alien decides to steal your body.

“I’m not _stealing it_ ,” the alien pointed out, sounding mildly offended. “I’ll give it back as soon as I’m done with it.”

“Oh, well, it’s okay then.” Bucky would’ve liked to roll his eyes in exasperation, but he couldn’t move his own body. He was standing still in the middle of a dark street, like an idiot. He realized he should’ve been more freaked out by the situation – _way_ more – but something was keeping him from panicking. “Are you doing something to me? To… make me calm?”

The body shivered. Then, slowly, it began to move, walking away from Bucky’s apartment. “Yes. Human’s chemical reactions are… complicated for me. You being afraid would slow things down.”

That made sense, Bucky couldn’t imagine that aliens felt things like humans did. And now that his fear had been locked away, curiosity was allowed to peek out. “So you’re basically drugging me. But why did you take my body? Oh, and how can you speak my language? Where do you come from? You’re an alien, aren’t you? Why are you here?”

The alien felt taken aback by the sheer number of questions. A wisp of confusion floated over to Bucky. “Humans aren’t supposed to know about aliens, are they?”

“Well, we don’t know for sure. We speculate. Except that now I have an alien in my head, so… Can you answer my questions? I won’t tell anyone, pinky promise.”

More confusion from the alien. “I guess I can. It won’t really matter.”

“What, why?”

Hesitation. “When this is over, your memory will be wiped. You won’t remember a thing past going out tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Do you still want me to answer?”

Did it matter if he got to know some cool stuff about aliens, when he would eventually forget it? Bucky realized pretty quickly that while future-him wouldn’t care much about those answers, present-him couldn’t live with the curiosity. “Yes, please.”

“I’m from a galaxy a long way from your solar system. Unfortunately our form is… not compatible with the conditions on this planet, so I needed to catch a ride.” The body was still walking, slightly faster than Bucky could have normally managed. “I won’t hurt you, and I’ll do my best not to get you hurt. But I do need your body.”

“Why?”

“I need to find… a thing. A thing that should’ve never been created, and that is now on this planet.”

“Like, a weapon?”

The alien didn’t answer.

Bucky quickly decided it was better to drop that particular question. “How can you speak my language?”

“I’m lifting it directly from your brain. Same thing with how the human world works and how to act to blend in. I have access to all your memories and most of your thoughts.”

For the first time, Bucky felt uncomfortable – he would’ve blushed, if only his body had responded to him. “I don’t have a very exciting life,” he mumbled. “I’m just a student.”

“I have no experience with human lives,” the alien reminded him, with a touch of amusement. “I wouldn’t know.”

Bucky mentally shrugged. “Do you have a name? I’m Bucky. Well, actually James, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

A series of discordant sounds resonated in his head, something scrambled and incomprehensible that made Bucky feel the need to shiver. “That’s my name,” the alien said, calmly. “I guess the closest translation in your language would be ‘soldier that comes from the cold times to destroy our enemies until nothing of them remains but dirt and frozen ashes’.”

Bucky hesitated for a moment. “Can I call you Winter?”

“Yes, you can.”

“Nice. So, what’s your plan now? Are we going to just walk around aimlessly until we find that thing you’re looking for?”

“I know where it is,” Winter replied, steering the body into a dark alley. “I just need to take it.”

A bad feeling started to pool in Bucky’s metaphorical stomach. “Are you going to elaborate on that?”

Outside, where Bucky couldn’t see, their eyes flashed ice-blue. “I’ll have to kill someone.”

___

Contrary to popular belief, even super-secret agencies that managed the alien situation on Earth needed someone to clean the floors and change the lightbulbs. Steve was that someone – had been for a long time.

He’d been seventeen when his mother had died and Dr. Abraham Erskine – the man who had been helping him with his many medical problems since he was a child – had taken him under his wing, and it wasn’t long after that that Steve discovered Erskine wasn’t exactly… human. At twenty-one, Steve was first introduced to the Men in Black – or SHIELD, as they were now called after the radical name-change a few years back. Steve liked the new name better.

Erskine had somehow managed to find him a job inside the organization. It wasn’t anything glamorous, but it paid way better than normal janitorial jobs – of course, the sheer number of NDA he’d had to sign had been impressive, and piled up they would probably be taller than him.

He wasn’t kept in the highest consideration by most SHIELD agents, but just because he couldn’t run more than five-hundred meters without having an asthma attack it didn’t mean he was stupid. He’d been working in that building for almost a decade – longer than a good number of agents – and he noticed when things weren’t right.

More than that, people _talked_ while he was around. Almost like they didn’t even notice his presence which, okay, _rude_ , but he was used to it. And thanks to that he gained a lot of information.

“N and C managed to get that emissary from Titan killed when they were supposed to protect him,” a stressed-looking woman said while she waited for her coffee to finish pouring in the cup. “I can’t imagine the amount of paperwork it will mean for all of us.”

Steve kept cleaning the slob left all over the floor by some slug-looking alien, but he was listening closely. He knew N and C – they weren’t _friends_ , not exactly, but they were two of the very few agents that noticed him instead of just walking past. Not to mention they were the best agents SHIELD had to offer. He’d never heard of them failing a mission before.

“They’ll have their heads,” the agent the woman was speaking to said, darkly. “Literally, I’ve heard Thanos of Titan wants them sent before this solar day is over.”

“Surely A won’t do it,” was the woman’s reply, but she sounded doubtful. “We don’t _kill_ agents. Wipe their memories and send them back into the normal world, sure, but-”

The blaring of a siren cut her off quite abruptly.

In the years Steve had been working in that building he’d heard that siren just once before, and it’d been when a bunch of highly dangerous alien criminals had somehow escaped from the underground levels and were breaking havoc in the hall. Eleven agents had been killed in that incident, a dozen more had been fired, and the rebuilding had taken two whole years.

So, Steve immediately knew that something was very, very wrong.

He didn’t hesitate a second before leaving what he was doing and running towards the main hall, where the commotion was happening.

There was chaos. Agents – most of them human, but there were aliens too – running in every direction, many of them shouting. A red light was flashing somewhere over their heads.

“What’s happening?” Steve asked the first agent he crossed paths with.

The man in question, Agent B – an asshole who was good enough at his job to be able afford his arrogant personality – barely glanced at him. “Get out of the way, Rogers,” he grumbled as he ran past, his partner J hot on his heels.

Steve glared at their backs, then turned around and stepped in front of T, the head technician. “Hey. What’s up?”

“C and N were declared traitors, went rogue and are currently on the run,” T said distractedly, tapping the side of his high-tech glasses and no doubt looking at something that wasn’t Steve. He didn’t stop walking towards the stairs that led to the control room. “A lost them in his own building. Very embarrassing, if you ask me.”

“But you have eyes on the whole building.” Steve frowned. “You could find them easily if you wanted.” T was as asshole-y as the other agents, but he was a genius. He knew his way with technology – human or otherwise. That was why he could get away with almost all his silly shenanigans, despite A’s displeasure.

T glanced at him, smirked. “Is that so?” Then he _winked_ and walked through the sliding doors of the control room, leaving Steve even more confused than before.

He stepped to the side to avoid collision with a mass of writhing tentacles with eyes and stayed there, watching. Most of the agents had cleared the main hall and were sitting at their stations, tapping fervently on the computers, or were walking briskly towards some other destination. Above all of that, in his glass office, A was watching everything. His expression was blank, his eyes cold.

Steve felt a little shiver run down his spine. Something was very wrong.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” A random agent shouted at him, waving. “Don’t you have a job to do? Something to clean up?”

Steve glared, then composed himself and gave the agent a thin smile. Then he walked away, almost blindly because his mind was running a mile an hour and couldn’t be bothered to check where he was actually going.

If T was hiding C and N somewhere – as he’d basically admitted to – it must’ve been a place with no surveillance. No cameras or bugs. But why was he hiding them? They were traitors… weren’t they? The feeling that something was _wrong_ wasn’t leaving him – in fact, it was growing stronger and stronger.

He glanced back one last time, at the main hall tinted red by the flashing emergency light, at the panicked agents and at A, standing in his glass office and watching from above. He’d never really liked A, he acted too much like a politician. He always said that he aspired to freedom and peace, but Steve usually felt a bad twist in his guts every time he watched him speak.

Something weird and probably fishy was going on with SHIELD, and perhaps Steve should’ve kept his nose out of it – but let’s be honest, he was physically unable to leave well enough alone.

A place with no surveillance. Somewhere no one really went. Steve bit back a smile, because he knew just the place.

The tiny storage room was perpetually soaked in the sharp smell of cleaning products, bottles upon bottles of the stuff lining the shelves. Steve had no idea where they bought something strong enough to clean alien drool, slime, or blood – and, on that one memorable occasion, poisonous tears – but they had _a lot_ of it _._ Steve was really familiar with the stuff.

He didn’t _actually_ expect to see someone upon entering, but he felt a tiny bit disappointed anyway. Steve closed the door behind himself and approached one of the shelves. He studied it for a long moment, then began to move all its contents to the floor. Once he was done it was easy to pull the shelves away from the wall. Just like he’d thought, a grate was hidden behind it. The ventilation ducts.

The screws had been loosened, so he just had to pull a little to detach it. And just inside there was _something_ : a cube, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, made of some blue crystal-like material that was glowing faintly.

Steve stared at it for a long moment; he looked around and grabbed the mop leaning against the nearby wall. He poked the cube with it, and it didn’t immediately disintegrate or burst into flames. That was something at least. He pondered what to do, then put on his thicker gloves – the ones he used if he had to clean acid drool or the likes – and finally he reached out and grabbed it. The cube glowed slightly brighter; it sent a tingle through his fingers. “Well,” he breathed. “Fuck.”

___

Bucky knew, rationally, that he should’ve been scared. Terrified. He’d just been a (passive) participant in a sci-fi gunfight. He’d seen a car being flipped into the air and crash upside down, a weird-looking purple guy inside. And then he’d been shot at by people with futuristic plasma guns, or whatever it was they were shooting at him with.

He’d felt his own body move, felt unnatural energy flow through his cells and _change_ the world around him, turn solids into liquids and back to solids again. He’d _hurt_ people.

But now he was feeling numb. The alien in his body had a too-strong hold on his own biology, was keeping him quiet and calm. He wondered if that was how being high on narcotics felt like.

“Please stop this,” he murmured, feeling so damn tired. “It’s not good for my mind, being drugged like this. You’re going to kill me if you keep this up.” He wasn’t sure if that really was a possibility, but it sure felt like it.

“I’m sorry.” Winter seemed distracted as they pushed the body to run way too fast through a labyrinth of streets Bucky barely recognized. “Can’t let you feel too much, it’s distracting.”

“I’m not feeling _anything_ right now!” Bucky replied, and was amazed when not even a spark of anger managed to emerge from the thick fog of numbness suffocating him. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!”

Winter stayed quiet and kept running. Eventually, they slowed down to a stop in a narrow alley behind a deli, crouched in the dark and let out a long sigh. “I never promised,” they murmured, but their hold on Bucky’s chemical reactions loosened.

The fear washed over him just a moment later, almost drowning him. He felt the alien recoil, felt the quickening breath and the trembling infect his hijacked body, felt a soft gasp come out from his own mouth, but he didn’t really pay attention to it all.

“That alien,” he managed to say. “The one in the car. You killed them.” Anger bled into his words.

“He _deserved_ it,” Winter snapped, then went quiet. After a few moments they said: “Your emotions are infecting me. They’re very strong.”

“Well, I am very scared. But don’t make me numb again. Please,” he quickly added.

Winter clearly hesitated, then asked: “Is there another way to make you not scared?”

“You could explain what’s going on,” Bucky tried, not too confident himself. “Maybe I’ll be, well, _less_ scared once I understand that.”

“…alright.” With the mental equivalent of a long sigh, Winter finally relented. “What do you need to know?”

“What’s this thing you’re trying to take? Who were those people?” That was only the tip of the iceberg of questions Bucky wanted to ask, but he figured it was better to start small. “You said I won’t remember once you’re gone, so why not tell me?”

Winter was quiet for a few moments more, then seemed to reach a decision. “For decades my planet has been at war with a species called Hydra,” they explained. “Hydra are vermin, parasites. They have no planet of their own because they drain and destroy everything they touch.”

“Okay, so they’re the bad guys.”

“Yeah.” Winter smiled a bit. “They’re the bad guys. But the truth is that we’re going to lose. They’re trying to obtain a weapon that could destroy a whole solar system, and with that kind of firepower in their possession no one in the universe would be able to stop them.”

“And that’s the thing you’re looking for. You want it to win this war, right?”

Winter didn’t answer, but they didn’t have to.

“But why Earth though? There are a billion planets in the universe, why here?”

“I don’t know. You were just unlucky, I guess.”

Unlucky. Missing the bus to school because you overslept was _unlucky_. Forgetting your umbrella on a rainy day was _unlucky_. Walking face-first into a tree was _unlucky_. Having a weapon of mass destruction, a weapon more than one species was fighting over, on your planet, now _that_ was downright _catastrophic_.

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky replied, feeling a bit lightheaded. “Was the guy you killed part of Hydra?”

“One of their allies.”

“Good, okay. And what about the people who shot at us? They looked human.”

Winter seemed to consider their answer for a long moment. “I think they’re the Men in Black,” they eventually said. “They should be the ones on your planet who deal with aliens.”

“Wait, hold on. Some of us _know_ about aliens? We have a special team for that?”

“It’s more of an organization, from what I’ve heard.”

“ _A whole organization?_ ” Bucky buried a hand in his hair, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he realized what he’d just done. “Wait. I can move again.”

“Yes. I need to recharge.”

“Like, your batteries?”

“I don’t have batteries, smartass.” Winter sounded farther away, like they were somehow slipping deeper in the back of Bucky’s mind. “But I need rest. This planet is not kind to those like me. Would you prefer I consume your bones and organs instead?”

Bucky shivered. “No, thank you.” Now that he had control of his body again he stood up, stretching a bit to ease the tense muscles in his back and shoulders. He felt kinda tired too, but going home sounded like a really bad idea. If those Men in Black guys had as advanced a technology as they’d seemed to have surely they’d identified him already. Bucky felt panic claw at his chest and firmly pushed it away before Winter could do it for him. He needed to stay calm, lucid, and he needed to trust the alien to get him out of all that dangerous alien business alive.

“Winter?” he called after thinking it over for a minute. He felt a _hum_ from somewhere inside his mind – he’d already gotten used to it, weirdly enough. “You didn’t need me alive, did you?”

Their silence spoke loudly, but Bucky decided to push a little bit more:

“You needed a body to survive our atmosphere, but you didn’t need to keep the person the body belonged to, right?”

“Yes.” No hesitation this time, but there was a sense of quiet anticipation. They were waiting for Bucky’s reaction.

Bucky smiled. “You’re a good alien, Winter,” he said. “I want to help you.”

“I could still kill you at any moment, you know.” Winter seemed confused and surprised, but while their threat was undoubtedly true it didn’t actually feel like a threat.

“Well, call me an idiot, but I don’t think you will.”

Winter went silent again, quiet shock reverberating through Bucky’s mind. “Yeah, whatever,” they finally said, almost begrudgingly, and Bucky couldn’t help a laugh.

“Great. So, what’s the plan?”

___

SHIELD was compromised.

That was the conclusion Steve had reached, the only one that really made sense. N and C couldn’t be traitors: they loved their job, were basically born for it. They wouldn’t go rogue for no reason. Something must have happened during their last mission, the one they failed. And if T – who Steve knew was a good guy, under all that asshole genius exterior – was covering for them that meant SHIELD couldn’t be trusted.

If Steve had learned something during his years working for SHIELD, was to always trust his gut instincts. He’d always liked N, C and maybe even T, and he’d never really been able to stand A’s benevolent politician act.

And then there was the glowing cube. The glowing cube he was currently hiding in his backpack, wrapped in so many anti-contamination, acid-proof, heat-resistant bags it was probably invisible to most detecting tech.

Steve wasn’t really sure if it was a power supply or a weapon, but it wasn’t difficult to understand that it would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Someone – or even multiple someones – was probably looking for that cube, so he needed to hide and protect it. Steve was already beginning to hate it.

___

“This is the worst plan,” Bucky complained under his breath, doing his best to hide under his hood and behind his loose hair. Before him, the iron door of an ugly grey building seemed to loom over his head. No one had gone inside in the last ten minutes, but a few sharply dressed people had come out, looking hurried.

“Do you have a better one?” Winter grumbled, still nestled somewhere under Bucky’s skin. They’d said that it would be harder to spot them if they stayed like that, but the notion didn’t help to soothe Bucky’s worries.

“No, but-”

“Then stop whining.”

“You literally want to break into the super-secret and probably heavily guarded headquarters of an alien-dealing organization!” At his outburst, a nearby pigeon glared at him and flew away. Bucky sighed. “We’re gonna die.”

“We won’t. I can take them.”

“You don’t even know for sure if that thing is in there!”

Winter huffed. “It is. I can see it, somewhere under the earth.”

“You can _what?_ ”

“Close your eyes.”

A bit unsettled, Bucky complied. And, for a single moment, he saw the world like Winter saw it: a confused abstract painting where energy signatures were the paint, spread in way more dimensions than the three Bucky was used to, endlessly moving, endlessly changing and melting and blending together. Somewhere in that incomprehensible vision there was _something_ made of pure energy. Bucky could feel it vibrate, almost as if it were alive.

After a second his brain started to hurt, and Bucky opened his eyes again. He felt breathless. “Alright, that’s…” He shook his head. If he tried to think about it he could already feel the vision fading from his memory, getting muddled, softer around the edges – that was probably his brain trying to protect his sanity. “I don’t even know how to begin to comprehend _that_.”

“Did you see it?”

“Yeah, I saw it. Wait. Do you always see like that? Can you see like I do?”

“Only through your eyes. It’s weirdly… flat. I don’t like it.”

Bucky chuckled, a tad hysterically. It was in moments like that one that he realized how _alien_ Winter really was. They had nothing in common, not even their basic senses. And yet there they were. “I still think that taking on a whole organization unarmed is a stupid plan. More than that, I don’t like you hurting people.”

“They’re bad guys.”

“ _All_ of them?” Bucky ran a nervous hand through his hair, forgetting for a moment he was supposed to hide his face. “Aren’t they supposed to protect us?” He almost jumped when the door of the building opened: a thin blond guy came out, quickly walked down the stairs and turned to follow the sidewalk, one hand clutched around the strap of his backpack like he was afraid someone would steal it. He wasn’t dressed in black like the others; instead he wore a simple checkered shirt under a warm coat and dark blue jeans.

“Move.” Winter voice was suddenly cold, demanding. “Follow him.”

“What?” Something invisible pushed him forward; Bucky turned, frowning at the empty air, and then began to walk. “Why? Does… does he have it?”

“Yes.” A flash of colors as he blinked, tendrils of power emanating from the blond man.

Bucky stumbled, gasping for air. “Please don’t do that. It hurts my brain.”

To their credit, Winter sounded genuinely apologetic: “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

The man was walking fast, but he looked like a person who never slowed down. Bucky followed him for a couple blocks, trying to be discreet, not knowing if he was succeeding at his self-imposed task. The man didn’t turn around or tell him anything, so maybe he was.

“So, what’s your plan?” he inquired in the meantime. “Please tell me you’re not going to kill him.”

“If he fights, I might have to.”

“You can’t just _kill_ someone!”

“I’ll try not to, alright?” He could feel that Winter was becoming agitated – probably something to do with those chemical reactions caused by Bucky’s emotions. “Calm down.”

“Alright, alright. Wait. Where did he go?” The man had disappeared from the sidewalk. Bucky paused to look around; a woman promptly bumped into him, making him stumble, and cursed him for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “Sorry!”

“On your left.” Winter’s voice was crystal-clear. Focused. “Inside the building.”

The man had slipped into an alley and up a row of emergency stairs. Bucky followed, muttering a resigned “This is breaking and entering, you know,” under his breath. The window was closed, heavy drapes concealing whatever was inside. “Alright, what now?”

“I’ll take control,” Winter said, and did just that. It was incredibly weird, being a passenger in his own body, but at least Bucky wasn’t heavily drugged this time. He felt his arms tingling as Winter waved a hand, strange foreign energy coursing through his veins; the window melted.

Winter stepped inside. They were in a living room, and the blond man was still nowhere to be seen. Or at least, _Bucky_ couldn’t see him: Winter reached out and _pulled_ , and the wall at the corner of the room warped and twisted like spun glass, trapping the man hiding behind it in a tight shell.

The man yelped, clearly caught off-guard. He seemed to be around Bucky’s age, with pretty blue eyes and a bony but strangely attractive face. Not that Bucky was noticing all that, of course not. He definitely did not notice how quickly the surprise and a hint of fear on the man’s face became determination and pure stubbornness, how he raised his chin and glared at Winter, asking: “Who the hell are you?”

“Give me the Cube. And I won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man replied without hesitation, still glaring. “I’m just a janitor, not an agent. They don’t tell me about that stuff.”

Something akin to irritation sparked in Bucky’s chest, surely coming from Winter. So much for not feeling human emotions, uh. Winter raised a hand again and that strange energy was back, tingling in each and every cell of Bucky’s body.

Bucky just barely managed to yell “Don’t kill him!” before sudden pain surged in his body, starting from his back and quickly spreading until it felt like he was on fire. He wasn’t sure who was screaming, if he or Winter or maybe both, and then they were crashing to the ground and the pain still wasn’t relenting.

Whatever was causing it, it was directly attacking Winter, targeting the energy that made them and trying to pull them apart somehow. It was agony.

At first Bucky didn’t even realize it had stopped, because it still hurt _so much_. Slowly, the pain softened into a constant ache that embraced his whole body. He couldn’t move, could barely twitch. His heart was beating so quickly it could probably explode, and his lungs were actually throbbing with how hard they’d worked in the last… seconds? Minutes? He couldn’t tell.

Someone was talking, and Bucky focused to listen despite the roar in his ears:

“…as _bait?_ ” This was the blond man, Bucky was almost sure. He sounded angry. “What the hell, C?”

A male voice: “Yeah, sorry. It was Nat’s idea- hey! Don’t hit me, it’s true!” Some intelligible grumbling. “Stay still. Who knew drywall would be so tough?”

“Just get me out of here.”

“I’m _trying!_ ”

A firm hand grabbed Bucky’s shoulder, rolling him onto his back. “Well,” the red-headed woman standing over him said, pointing a huge futuristic gun at his head. “He’s still alive and he didn’t explode. I’ll say that’s a win.” She regarded Bucky with an attentive gaze. “You’re the human, right?”

Bucky let out a pained groan, trying his best to nod.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Good.” The woman smiled wryly. “We weren’t sure if you were still alive in there.” Behind her, a man with sandy blond hair and huge arms was just finishing breaking down the plaster around the other man.

“They-” Bucky coughed, tasting blood on his lips.

“Easy.” The blond man who had the cube rushed forward and knelt at his side, helping Bucky sit up. “Are you alright?” He glared at the other two. “What the hell did you do to him?”

“You’re welcome for saving your life, Steve.”

So the blond’s name was Steve. Good to know.

Bucky cleared his throat. “They wouldn’t have killed you,” he managed to say, because that felt like something Steve should’ve known. “I made them promise.”

“They… the alien?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “You made the alien promise. It listens to you.”

“ _Their_ name is Winter.” Bucky didn’t really like the woman’s tone. “Did you… did you kill them?” But he could still feel some tendrils of energy lurking in his body. “Winter?” he called quietly, in his thoughts. “Are you alright?”

“No,” a distant voice answered him. Winter sounded weak and vaguely pissed off. “I’m almost burned out. Powerless.”

“Would it help if I stayed near the Cube? Can you, I don’t know, absorb some of its energy?”

“That’s a good idea. Thank you, Bucky.”

“Are you actually talking to it- um, them, right now?” The man with biceps as thick as Bucky’s head took a step forward, brushing bits of plaster off his clothes. “Listen dude, I don’t know what this Winter told you, but they’re bad news. For you, us, and everyone living in this solar system.”

“They’re just trying to stop Hydra from eating their planet.”

“What the hell is Hydra?” Steve asked, clearly getting irritated, at the same time as the woman said: “Their planet has already been _eaten_.”

Bucky stared at her. “What?”

“From what we’ve gathered, Hydra are space parasites,” the man – did Steve call him “C” earlier? – explained. “They consume other planets one by one, crawl and slither everywhere like little worms.” Now that Bucky was watching them more closely, they looked familiar.

Recognition dawned on him: “You were there last night.” He tried to scoot back but still had to lean on Steve to stay upright. “With the alien Winter killed. You’re with Hydra.”

“We are _not_ ,” the woman snapped, then regained her composure. “But SHIELD is rotten,” she said, now talking to Steve. “Someone at the top is helping Hydra.”

Steve’s expression went dark. “You’re thinking it’s A, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. He shook his head when the woman nodded. “I’ve never liked him. So, what’s the plan now?”

The two agents shared a look.

“Look.” Steve glared at the both of them – Bucky admired him for that, for standing up to two trained, alien-battling agents like they were just your average annoying friends. “I already know T is helping you, and you owe me for dropping an unidentified source of power on me and using me as fucking _bait_ for an alien that can bend walls.”

“Winter can change the states of matter of things,” Bucky helpfully piped up. “Solid to liquid and vice versa, all that. Also, the Cube is a weapon of mass destruction that Winter is trying to protect.”

Steve went pale. “Mass destruction?” he repeated, very slowly, and nervously glanced at the bad he was still carrying.

“Yeah, no.” C huffed. “I mean, yes, that thing _is_ a weapon. But your alien friend sure as hell is _not_ trying to protect it.”

“They want to destroy it,” the woman said. Matter-of-factly, like she was talking about the effects of gravity on a falling object. “And with it our planet and everything that’s around us.”

“What?” Bucky shook his head. “That’s not true!” But Winter was quiet, wasn’t defending themselves, and the doubt crept in. “Is it true?”

“It’s the only way,” Winter said. Steady. Cold.

Bucky felt the floor being pulled out from under his feet. “What?” he repeated, quietly. “Why?”

“Keeping the Cube out of Hydra’s hands is the only thing that matters. Sometimes in war certain sacrifices are necessary.”

“Sacrifices? It’s a whole planet!”

Winter felt distant like they’d never been before. “Earth is just a pebble if compared to the universe.”

“I can’t believe you!” Anger rose in his chest, too quick and scalding even for Winter to dampen. “Why did you even let me live if you planned to kill us all anyway?”

For the first in that conversation, Winter hesitated. “I was going to,” they admitted, without a ounce of regret. “But you were curious. Funny. You reminded me of my-” An alien word, incomprehensible. “I guess you would call it my sibling.”

“What the _hell_ , Winter?” Bucky moved to get back on his feet, was momentarily surprised to discover that he could – swaying, feeling weak and unstable, but he _could_. His surprise was quickly drowned out by anger. “You lied to me! You outright _lied_ to my _face!_ ” He noticed that the two agents were watching him warily and realized he was shouting. Bucky took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. His head was spinning.

Steve laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “We’re going to fix this,” he promised, his other hand wrapped around the bag’s strap. “We’ll take this Hydra thing out of SHIELD and find someplace safe for this… Cube.”

“Alright but get away from me. Winter gets energy from being near Cube.”

“You need me,” Winter spoke up. “If you plan to fight Hydra, you need me.”

Bucky firmly shook his head and deliberately walked away from Steve, stopping only when he was on the other side of the room: “Not if you’re going to kill us, no, we don’t.” He wondered if Winter was still powerful enough to kill him from the inside, but firmly pushed that thought away: he couldn’t afford to let fear have the better of him. 

“You don’t even know who these people are or what they want.”

“Sure I do. They’re humans just like me and they want to stop Hydra and save the world without destroying it. That’s enough info to trust them more than I trust you at the moment.”

Winter didn’t reply, and instead retreated somewhere under Bucky’s skin. They were still _there_ , watching and listening, but they didn’t feel like such a threat anymore.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, a worried frown pulling down his eyebrows.

“Doesn’t matter. We have work to do.”

“ _We_ have work to do,” the woman replied, like she couldn’t believe she had to specify that. “You two are civilians.”

Steve glared. “I’ve been in SHIELD longer than you have,” he snapped, crossing his bony arms against his chest. “Both of you. Also, I have the Cube.” He patted his bag.

Feeling the agents’ gaze on him, Bucky straightened. “Yeah, well, and I want to help.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather forget about all this and go back to your life?” C asked with a dubious expression, reaching in the pocket of his pants to grab something. “Go home?”

Bucky shook his head. “I still have a dangerous alien inside of me. Not exactly a trivial matter, if you want my modest opinion.”

“If they know what’s good for them, they will leave.”

“Stop.” Steve stepped forward. “He said he wants to help, so let him help.”

Bucky met Steve’s eyes and felt warm gratitude blossom in his chest at not being dismissed as easily as the two agents had done. He and blondie were going to get along just fine, he could feel it. He also felt Winter’s confusion at the feeling currently invading most of his torso, but wisely decided to ignore them and focus instead on C and… what was her name, Nat?

“So.” Bucky shrugged, and hoped he looked like someone who had even a vague idea of what he was doing. “What’s the plan?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a minute, please consider leaving a comment to let me know if you liked this fic or not, and if you would have done something differently!  
> Also, check out [ my Tumblr.](https://chim-aceyliz.tumblr.com/) if you want to chat about Stucky or throw some fic ideas my way! I'm always open to some brainstorming :)


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